Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Every generous action loves the public view; yet no theatre for virtue is equal to a consciousness of it.
A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.
Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.
It is the character of a brave and resolute man not to be ruffled by adversity and not to desert his post.
For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
When time and need require, we should resist with all our might, and prefer death to slavery and disgrace.
The spirit is the true self. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure.
There is nothing better fitted to delight the reader than change of circumstances and varieties of fortune.
Any man may make a mistake; none but a fool will stick to it. Second thoughts are best as the proverb says.
The recovery of freedom is so splendid a thing that we must not shun even death when seeking to recover it.
I prefer silent prudence to loquacious folly. [Lat., Malo indisertam prudentiam, quam loquacem stultitiam.]
I do not wish to die: but I care not if I were dead. [Lat., Emori nolo: sed me esse mortuum nihil aestimo.]
No man was ever great without divine inspiration. [Lat., Nemo vir magnus aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit.]
If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonor to him to halt at the second, or even at the third.
There is nothing more shocking than to see assertion and approval dashing ahead of cognition and perception.
Promises are not to be kept, if the keeping of them is to prove harmful to those to whom you have made them.
In friendship we find nothing false or insincere; everything is straight forward, and springs from the heart.
Law is the highest reason implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite.
No tempest or conflagration, however great, is harder to quell than mob carried away by the novelty of power.
It is the stain and disgrace of the age to envy virtue, and to be anxious to crush the very flower of dignity.
No man can be brave who thinks pain the greatest evil; nor temperate, who considers pleasure the highest good.
It is a common saying that many pecks of salt must be eaten before the duties of friendship can be discharged.
Death is dreadful to the man whose all is extinguished with his life; but not to him whose glory never can die.
He who has once deviated from the truth, usually commits perjury with as little scruple as he would tell a lie.
It is the soul itself which sees and hears, and not those parts which are, as it were, but windows to the soul.
Nature has circumscribed the field of life within small dimensions, but has left the field of glory unmeasured.
What nobler employment, or more valuable to the state, than that of the man who instructs the rising generation?
The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.
All pain is either severe or slight, if slight, it is easily endured; if severe, it will without doubt be brief.
Everyone cleaves to the doctrine he has happened upon, as to a rock against which he has been thrown by tempest.
More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.
For nothing is more commendable, nothing more becoming in a preeminently great man than courtesy and forbearance.
It might be pardonable to refuse to defend some men, but to defend them negligently is nothing short of criminal.
It is of no avail to know what is about to happen; for it is a sad thing to be grieved when grief can do no good.
O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!
It is a great proof of talents to be able to recall the mind from the senses, and to separate thought from habit.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
Virtue is increased by the smile of approval; and the love of renown is the greatest incentive to honourable acts.
My precept to all who build, is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.
It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy, but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life.
If only every man would make proper use of his strength and do his utmost, he need never regret his limited ability.
Aristoteles quidem ait: 'Omnes ingeniosos melancholicos esse.' Aristotle says that all men of genius are melancholy.
Can there be greater foolishness than the respect you pay to people collectively when you despise them individually?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? In heaven's name,Catiline, how long will you abuse ourpatience?
By Hercules! I prefer to err with Plato, whom I know how much you value, than to be right in the company of such men.
Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
The name of peace is sweet and the thing itself good, but between peace and slavery there is the greatest difference.
Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.
The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.